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FRIAR ODORIC. 159

And so by God's grace I came forth scathless. Then all the Saracens, when they heard of this, showed me great worship, saying that I was a baptised and holy man. But those who had perished in that valley they said belonged to the devil.'

50. Friar Odoric attesteth the truth of his story.

I, Friar Odoric the Bohemian of Friuli, from a certain town called Pordenone, of the Order of Min orites and the Province of St. Anthony, do solemnly declare and attest to my reverend father the Friar Guidotto, the Minister of the Province aforesaid of St. Anthony in the March of Treviso, in accordance with my vow of obedience and the injunction which he hath laid upon me, that all these things herein-before written I either beheld with mine own eyes or heard from men worthy of credit. And as for such things as I saw not myself, the common talk of those countries beareth witness to their truth. And many things I have left. out and have not caused to be written lest they should be deemed too hard for belief by such as have not seen them with their own eyes. But, as for me, from day to day I prepare myself to return to those countries in which I am content to die, if so it pleaseth Him from whom all good things do come.

Nov, all the things hereinbefore contained were faithfully taken down in writing by Friar William of Solagna,3 just as the aforenamed Friar Odoric the Bohemian uttered them,

1 Here the scribe of the Palatine MS. inserts "Finita la diceria di Prate Oderico. Deo Grazias!" An end of Friar Odoric's long stories at last.

2 I have here placed this attestation as it is in the FARSETTI and BoLLANDIST versions. No one MS. has the whole of the matter from this to the end arranged exactly as here, but it is, I believe, the original arrangement, and the only one admitting of the introduction of the postscripts of both William of Solagna and Marchesino of Bassano.

3 The position of the name-place of this friar appears to have caused some considerable amount of writing to the Italian critics. It seems to be settled that Solagna is a village on the Brenta, near Bassano. (Nuova Raccolta d'Opuscoli, etc., Venezia, 1794, vol. xxv, art. 9.)